Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, said Thursday it shot dead a Belarusian man who planned to blow up an administrative building in Russia’s northern Karelia region on behalf of Ukraine.
The FSB said the man planned to use an improvised explosive device to carry out the attack in the city of Olonets, about 250 kilometers from the Russia-Finland border.
The agency shared a video showing officers closing in on a building in a remote area and then firing shots, followed by video of a body on the floor.
There was no immediate comment by Ukrainian officials on the matter.
The sound of a large explosion reverberated through Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa on Wednesday, just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis were ending a tour of the war-ravaged area.
The Greek leader said officials were getting into their vehicles when they heard the blast, which he said was a "vivid reminder" that Odesa is gripped by the war with Russia.
Mitsotakis said it was one thing to hear about the war and "quite another to experience war firsthand."
Zelenskyy said the explosion killed an unknown number of people and wounded more. "You see who we're dealing with, they don't care where to hit," he told reporters.
Zelenskyy has regularly visited cities and military units on the front line during the war, always in secrecy until after he has left. Foreign leaders have made numerous trips to Ukraine, often to the capital of Kyiv, and they occasionally have had to take refuge in shelters when air raid sirens have sounded.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, on the X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, condemned what she called the "vile attack" during the Greek leader‘s visit. She called it a "new attempt at terror" by Russia.
Zelenskyy showed Mitsotakis the destruction in Odesa, where the most recent major Russian attack killed 12 people — including five children — when debris from a Russian drone hit an apartment block on March 2.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
